


Love is an Open Door

by ellacj



Series: Come On, Come Out the Door [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Two Shot, the second part will have a happier ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2376341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in forever, Regina might just let someone in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is an Open Door

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the scene in 4x01 with Emma and Regina talking through the door, and immediately had to write a piece on it. This is a two part piece, and the second part will be posted sometime before 4x02 airs.

She’s his wife.

It all comes crashing down on Regina’s shoulders as the lock clicks into place. Of all the people whose lives Emma could have saved, it had to be Robin’s wife.

“Always the villain,” Regina murmurs to herself, repeating what she said to Emma earlier. “Even when I’m not.” She crosses the room to pour herself some cider from the decanter she keeps in her office, filling it long past the proper amount. There’s no one here to judge her for it. There’s no one here at all.

Draining half the glass in one swallow, Regina laughs softly through the moisture rapidly filling her eyes. How foolish she was to think she might actually have a chance at happiness. How foolish to think that maybe she’d escaped her fate. Changed herself. She’ll always be the villain. “And villains don’t get happy endings,” she finishes aloud with a bitter chuckle.

Oh, but there was Rumpelstiltskin, out on his honeymoon with his new wife. The Dark One, evading the rules yet again while Regina has her heart shattered and her fate manipulated yet again.

Regina knocks back the rest of her drink and goes back to lean against the door, suddenly feeling her legs grow weak. They crumple beneath her and she makes no move to stand up; simply draws her knees to her chest and tries to get her emotions under control.

The doorknob jiggling interrupts her thoughts. “Regina?” a muffled voice comes through the door. It’s Emma. “I know you’re in there; I can see the light on.”

“Go away, Emma.” Regina’s surprised to hear her voice so hoarse, so close to breaking, but she can’t bring herself to care. Emma deserves to know what she’s done.

“No. Not until we talk.”

Regina doesn’t reply. Emma’s behavior so often resembles that of a petulant toddler; and Regina learned with Henry that the way to get toddlers to stop doing something is to ignore them.

“Look, Regina, I… I’m not going to apologize for saving a life. I know I did the right thing in that. But I hate that I hurt you. Look, Henry brought me to Storybrooke so I could bring back all the happy endings, and I’m not going to stop until I do just that. And that includes yours, Regina.” There’s a slight hesitation before Regina hears heavy bootsteps walking away from Regina’s office door – Emma was never good at treading lightly.

“Oh, but Miss Swan, haven’t you heard?” Regina murmurs to the empty room, lip curling coyly. “I’m a villain. And I always will be.”

Regina manages to avoid Emma for two days before they cross paths again, this time in the Granny’s restroom of all places. Regina’s sitting in a stall blotting her eyeliner after seeing Robin and Roland telling Marian about Storybrooke over pancakes. He’s certainly moved on much more quickly than she; then again, she doesn’t have anyone to help her do that.

The boots outside are moving quickly, but they come to a halt in front of Regina’s stall. “Regina?” Emma asks tentatively.

Regina sighs. “What do you want, Swan?”

“I… I haven’t seen you in a while. I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

“I am.”

“Oh.” The boots shuffle awkwardly. “Can… can we talk? Maybe you could come out of there?”

“No.”

Emma taps the toe of her boot on the ground a few times. “Right. Look. I feel terrible, okay? I would never want to do anything to hurt you; you’ve got to know that. And honestly, if I’d known it would lead to this, I might have even left her there. But I didn’t. And now we have to figure out what to do next.” She takes a deep breath, gathering herself before continuing. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’d like it if we could do that together. I think we make a good team.”

Regina shifts slightly, unsure of what to say. In the end, she just keeps her mouth shut and hopes that Emma will go away – which she does after a good minute. Regina stands up and dabs away the last smears of makeup before squaring her shoulders and leaving the restroom to face the world once again.

It takes a near-death situation before Emma dares speak to Regina again.

This time Emma corners her as she’s parking her car at the office, standing in front of the vehicle and making it oh so tempting to “accidentally” hit the accelerator rather than the brake.

Emma moves to the left side of the car and taps on the window, and Regina cracks it open just enough to hear what Emma has to say without letting her see Regina’s face through the tinted windows.

“Come on, Regina. Haven’t we both been through enough shit?”

“No.”

“I nearly died yesterday, if you don’t remember.”

“You do that a lot, dear.”

Emma sighs and runs a hand through her tangled mess of blonde curls. “It’s fucking Elsa. Motherfucking Elsa is running through Storybrooke shooting ice magic everywhere – only this time she’s not singing ‘Let It Go’ and building fancy castles on a mountain.”

Regina nods once, knowing full well Emma can’t see her.

“I can’t take her down by myself. Storybrooke needs you, Regina.” Emma pauses, glancing at her feet as though wondering whether to continue. “I need you.”

Regina almost speaks, but finds that she has no idea what to say. It’s been so long since anyone’s needed her; she doesn’t know how to respond to it. Emma pulls her jacket around herself and hurries off with bright red ears, evidently embarrassed at what she’s just said, and Regina can’t help but feel embarrassed on her behalf. Anyone should be who admits to needing Regina.

She gets out of the car and starts walking toward the office, only to have her arm caught by none other than Emma Swan. “Let go of me,” she hisses, wrenching her arm out of Emma’s grasp.

“You can’t avoid me forever.”

“No, but I can try.” Regina doesn’t break stride, mildly impressed that Emma’s able to easily keep up with her. The infuriating blonde follows her all the way to her office before Regina goes inside and slams and locks the door before she can go through. She leans her back against the door, rubbing her temples in an attempt to calm herself down.

“Regina, open up.” Emma tries to turn the knob, but eventually resorts to simply pounding on the door itself. “You can’t run away from your problems like this. You have to face them.”

Regina laughs shortly. “I don’t think you have any right to give me _that_ lecture, Miss Swan. You’ll notice I’m still in town.”

The pounding stops abruptly. After a moment, there’s a soft thump outside, and Regina peers under the crack of the doorway to glimpse dark blue denim. A look through the keyhole shows Emma slumped on the floor and leaning against the door, reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall. She looks absolutely defeated.

Slowly, Regina sinks to the floor as well, drawing her knees to her chest and leaning against the door. If she closes her eyes she can almost imagine she’s actually leaning against Emma herself, with no barrier between them.

“Have you even seen _Frozen_?” Emma asks abruptly.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“No, of course you haven’t. Well, there’s this song near the beginning of the movie. ‘Love is an Open Door’. And it got me thinking, you know, how we only ever talk through barriers these days. And maybe love doesn’t have to be the open door. Maybe it can be forgiveness that makes you open up and let me in.”

Regina’s silent for a moment. “What happens in the movie?” she asks softly. “Do they ever open the door?”

“It’s complicated,” Emma says slowly. “Because Anna thought that this one guy was gonna be the one who opened all the doors and she thought he loved her, but it turned out he was wrong for her. But in the end it was Elsa who opened the door and who loved Anna more than anyone.” She pauses, and Regina can see in her mind’s eye the way Emma chews on her bottom lip when she’s nervous. “Sometimes the people we think are right for us just… aren’t. And sometimes the people who didn’t mean to hurt you are the ones who care the most.”

“And do you? Care?”

Emma’s voice is barely audible through the thick door as she responds. “Way more than he ever did.”

Regina doesn’t move for a long time. But finally, slowly, she stands up and unlocks the office door. She turns the knob, pulling the door open at a glacial pace, peering through the ever-widening opening it creates.

She just catches sight of a boot heel leaving the building. With a sigh, Regina opens the door the rest of the way and just stands there in the open doorway. “Well, there you are, Emma,” she mutters. “I opened the door. And you left.”

And if she’s telling the truth, Regina almost hopes she’ll come back.


End file.
